U.S. SOCIAL FORUM: "We're Living a Nightmare Called Katrina"

[many a good man]

Matthew Cardinale, Inter Press Service (IPS) Fri Jun 29, 7:05 PM ET

ATLANTA, Jun 29 (IPS) - Under the banner, "If another world is possible, another U.S. is necessary," 10,000 civil society activists gathered in Atlanta, Georgia Wednesday for the beginning of the first U.S. Social Forum.

A spin-off of the annual World Social Forum, the USSF aims to "send a message to other people's movements around the world that there is an active movement in the U.S. opposing U.S. policies at home and abroad", according to organisers.

During the first plenary session on the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Katrina, held in a large auditorium at Atlanta's Civic Centre Thursday, Jerome Scott of Project South said, "The whole question of the Gulf Coast and the response the government had... pulled the covers on all the evil things that exist in this country."

...

Speakers and audience members emphasised that Hurricane Katrina is also symbolic of so many other problems people face in the U.S. and around the world, day to day.

"If you're working in criminal justice, you're talking about Katrina. If you're talking about health care, you're talking about Katrina. If you're talking about housing, you're talking about Katrina. We're living in a nightmare called Katrina. The source is a backwards, capitalist, racist system," one audience member said in public remarks.

more at http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/150823/1/